


O & H

by SavingAnnie



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 13:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19210171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SavingAnnie/pseuds/SavingAnnie
Summary: Two almost strangers meet on a field of mist and memories.





	O & H

“What’s your name?”

  
She hadn’t noticed him before, although it was hard to see much of anything in the fog. For all she knew he’d been standing right beside her the entire time.

“O.” She said

“O? That’s not a name.”

“O is all I can remember.”

“Oh.” His red rimmed eyes drifted from her face to survey the grey landscape around them. “Well, I’ll call you Olivia. That’s a proper girl’s name.”

She frowned.

“What?” He cocked his head and she was suddenly reminded of a crow examining a shining penny on the ground. “You don’t like Olivia? I can call you something else.”

“No, it’s not that it’s just...” She curled a pinky around her flaxen hair. _Its damp_ , she noted, _from the mist?_ “Why do you have a better idea of who I’m supposed to be than I do?”

“Do I?”

“I think you do. I think other people always have.”

“Well that’s strange.” He linked arms with her and the two of them began to walk through the mist, “I get the feeling that nobody ever knew what to make of me.”

“I certainly don’t.”

“You wouldn’t.”

She stopped.

“There you go again! Telling me things about myself I’m not even sure are true.”

He ran a hand through his unkempt hair, the corner of his mouth twitching as he looked down to where her hand had clenched into a fist.

“Whatever you say, Olivia”

“O.”

“Still not a name.”

“Well maybe I’m done with names.”

Another birdlike tilt of the head.

“What is a name anyway?” she pressed on. “An epithet given to me by somebody else just so they can call me when they need me? So they can lecture me, use me, form me into what they will?” Pale grass parted before her as she stalked forward, hands lashing out on each me! Me! ME!

 _Who am I?_ she wanted to scream.

“You’re learning to speak.”

“What?” She paused, turning to see the slight boy standing exactly where she’d left him.

“I was always the one with words.”

“You remember?”

“I- No.” His brow crinkled, “That’s just a truth, I’ve known it for as long as I’ve been here.”

“And where is here?” She watched as he shrugged and glanced behind them, as if he’d only just thought to examine his surroundings. Beyond the grass drifting quietly around their legs and the dense fog between them there was… nothing.

“I think–“ she whispered, “coming here was the first thing I ever said.”

“Don’t say that.”

“No, it’s true.” she laughed but her throat felt tight, “And you? You said too much.”

“Yes.”

“You spoke over me. You buried me.”

“I wasn’t the only one.” An empty protest.

“No. You weren’t.”

They stared at each other.

“I’m not going to absolve you.” She said.

“You’re angry. I was angry, once.”

“I wish I could take my name from your mouth.”

“Then take it!” Suddenly, he was very close, red rimmed eyes darting over her face. He grabbed her hand and dragged it to his mouth. Her fingertips touched his tongue.  
Her eyes widened, and then she laughed in disgust, “I remember you now, _madman_. The way you played upon me, preyed upon me, the things you said!” She was drenched, she was drowning.

“I thought I loved you.”

“You knew you didn’t. But now history says we loved.”

“We did not.”

“Oh, you loved!”

“Yes O, I loved.”

“But not me.”

“No.” He sighed. His talon grip on her hand relaxed. “Were we always going to end up here, O? Fallen under the sword and the willow tree?”

“Hush, don’t be morbid.”

“Morbidity is all I see.”

A disquiet silence followed.

“They erased me too, you know? I died and they erected a soldier over my memory, over my grave… All I ever had was my words.”

“Imagine having less than that: just a name to be called.” She lifted her hand to her cheek, eyes widening, “My name… Oph-“

“Don’t say it!” he cried, “That poor forgotten girl, let her rest. No more harm.”

“No more harm.” She agreed. “Those children are dead.”

“Are we?” He asked.

Before she could answer, the fog before them began to swirl. Somewhere, in another world, the moon was rising and a man walked alone on the battlements.

She watched as her companion was pulled towards the shifting shape of the man, stretching out his hand, only to have it pass through the figure completely.

“Oh, sweet prince” she whispered, “they are the ghosts now.”


End file.
